CRAVE (20 page)

When the room remained silent, at length Charming ventured a glance at his father. Free’s expression didn’t hold the censure he expected. Instead Free looked mystified. He shook his head slightly just before he started laughing. That was just about the last thing Charming had expected. Glancing at his mother, he saw that she was trying to hide a smile.

“You tried to make Crave do something he didn’t want to do?” Free said, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “Right now if I have to pick which one of you is crazier, I’d say that would be you. What were you thinking? Not even Carnal would get between Crave and something he’d set his mind on!”

Charming glanced at his mother before speaking. “I didn’t want to have to come home and tell you I’d failed.”

Free pulled out a chair and sat. “If I haven’t gotten this across, then I’ve been remiss, so please hear me now. Nobody is successful all the time, son. All it takes to make us proud is knowing that you tried.” He turned Charming’s face one way and then the other. “You’re going to be a lot less good-looking for a while.”

Charming started to smile, but hissed when he learned that smiling caused pain. “You think I’m good-looking?”

“Of course.” Free winked at Serene. “You look just like your mother.”

“I’m going to find Crave’s old crew. Get them to take a ride out and try to talk some sense into him.” Free nodded like he saw wisdom in that plan. “If they don’t get any farther than I do, I’m going to go back out myself tonight. If he still feels the same, I’m going to Fosterland and get Dandy.”

Free got to his feet. “While you’re hunting up his friends, I’m gonna take a ride myself.”

Charming’s eyes lit up. Free hadn’t been more than a few yards from the house since Carnal had died. “You think you remember how to ride?”

“You’re pretty mouthy for a guy whose face is so swollen he can barely talk.”

Charming tried to smile, having already forgotten that his smile was temporarily out of commission. “Ow. Crave hits hard.”

Serene looked at Free. “Should I come?”

Free lifted his chin and gave her that familiar look of pride and longing that he’d always reserved for her alone. “Let me try. Father to son.”

She turned to Charming. “I can help find his friends. Raven and Leo work part time keeping the school-age young in physical training. The rest of the time they’re helping Red’s crew. Scape is at Fosterland working on the building there.”

“I know. Snow volunteered to work with the human engineers, helping get the power back up. I’ll see if Leo and Raven are here before I leave. If they aren’t, I’ll look for them in Farsuitwail. You don’t need to come. If everybody is looking, we’ll find them fast.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

During the past two, almost three, years, not a single day had passed that everybody on Crave’s former crew hadn’t thought about him. Until a few months ago they’d carried the guilt and horror of having watched him be taken by the Rautt and not being able to stop it. When he was recovered and brought back to Newland, that guilt hadn’t lessened.

At first it had been made more painful because of witnessing what had become of their friend’s mind and body. Then when Crave had been released, guilt had coupled with the pain of him looking past them and through them like they were strangers, like their mutual experience wasn’t punctuated by years of training together to become warriors. By the shared history of life and death battles. Or the trust that follows from looking out for each other when comrades depend on each other for survival.

So Crave’s old crew had avoided him. It wasn’t hard to enter into a pact with the entire community not to mention Carnal. It was another good excuse to stay away from the reminder that what happened to Crave could have happened to any of them. And, in moments of harsh self-rebuke, each secretly thought it should have been them instead, for the simple reason that, if pressed, each would have confessed that they believed Crave was the best of them by any measure.

Raven and Leo were on the training field with children.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Charming told Serene. “I’ll find the other two.”

Serene nodded and walked on through the north opening of the training field.

Charming did find Snow at an operations station not far from town center. She wasn’t hard to spot. She was named for her white-blonde hair.

“Charming? Is that you?” she asked.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

She pointed to his face. “I wasn’t sure. Don’t take this the wrong way, but has something happened?”

He grunted in the affirmative. “Crave.”

She stiffened, put down her clipboard and motioned with her head for him to accompany her where no one would overhear. After they stepped outside, she said, “What’s up?”

“He got his memories back. Now he’s on some fool quest to prove to Dandy that he’s willing to die for her.”

Her eyebrows came together. “How’s he going to prove that, Charming?”

“She’s working at Fosterland. That’s what they call the orphanage they’ve built for Rautt kids. He’s crossing the desert on foot.”

Snow’s eyebrows knitted together even closer. “He is not!”

“He thinks he is. He left Newland on foot about twenty-six hours ago. He’d just passed the reactors when,” Charming pointed to his face, “he told me in no uncertain terms that he’s doing this thing whether I like it or not.”

Snow looked away. “Most stubborn person I ever knew.”

“Somehow when you say it, it doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.”

She smiled. “Who do you want at your back in a battle? Somebody who gives up easy?”

“Yeah. I see what you mean. Well, Serene and I are looking up his old crew. We thought that, I don’t know, maybe he’d come closer to listening to reason if it was coming from his friends.”

She tossed the clipboard she’d been holding to the ground, pressed her lips together and began striding toward where her bike was parked.

“Does this mean you’ll go talk to him?” Charming asked.

“What does it look like?” she said as she threw her leg over her bike.

“You better go get outfitted. You’re not dressed to be out in the desert at this time of day.”

She laughed at Charming. “You think that’s going to stop me?” She started her bike, shaking her head.

“Hang on. I’m headed to Fosterland to talk to Scape and Dandy.”

She didn’t see any reason to wait for Charming. Getting Crave back after years of believing he was dead, just to have him throw his life away? As far as Snow was concerned, that wasn’t happening.

If Charming wanted to catch up, he’d have to move faster.

It felt like trying to walk in an oven. Having a blanket draped over him didn’t make the heat better, but he knew that not having it would mean saying goodbye to the skin that held all the other stuff inside his body. The top of the blanket formed a hood that draped down over his face so that all he could see was the next step in front of him. Every now and then he peeked out just to make sure he was still headed toward the northern mountains and not walking in circles.

When he’d finished off the first two waterskins, it was almost a relief to drop them on the desert floor and be rid of their weight.

He knew there were creatures in the desert. Snakes. Lizards. Scorpions. But he didn’t see any. He supposed they used what little sense they’d been given to stay out of his way.

Alone for hours, with no one and nothing around, no sensations except heat, thirst, and the strange unearthly sound the desert makes, Crave’s mind began replaying his years as a captive. Every horror. Every pain. Every monstrous indignity was involuntarily paraded across his vision.

With no one to know or judge, he let himself scream. And roar. And cry.

He didn’t plan it and was unaware of the cathartic benefit, but it was a psychic healing. A cleansing. A purge by fire. A reformation of the ugliness so that he could hold himself upright and reclaim the belief that he was Crave, leader’s son and Promise to Dandelion. He also had an unwavering certainty that the first was least important in the overall scheme of things and the latter was all that mattered in the world.

If he died on the way, the demons would die with him. If he made it and his Promise couldn’t forgive him, he’d walk back the way he came and let the barrens take him. And the demons would die with him.

When he’d replayed every crime committed against him, his mind turned to the time before he’d been taken. He remembered Dandy’s smile when she’d come to the window to let him in. Her bed wasn’t very big, which meant they had to sleep entangled with one another. That suited him just fine. He’d always thought that, after they made their formal Promise and had a house of their own, they would have a bed that same size. Always.

His mind replayed flashes of making love to Dandelion. He loved everything about the way she looked, the way she moved, the way she could be so demanding sexually. Sometimes he’d let her take control just for the fun of it. Sometimes he needed to show her which one of them was male.

He’d never been able to fix on a sexual position he liked best. There was something to be said for all of them, but he thought perhaps he liked having her on hands and knees. Though he’d never asked her, he wouldn’t be at all surprised if she didn’t agree. In that position he could drive himself all the way to her womb. The harder he thrust the more she liked it. He would lean over her back, hold himself up on one arm, and wrap his free arm around her middle.

That was why he liked it best. Because he could be rough and affectionate at the same time.

He told himself that, if he made it to the other side, if Dandelion forgave him, if they still had a chance at the life together they’d always planned, he was going to take her like that at least once a day for the rest of their lives. He was going to give her what she wanted, what she needed, even things she didn’t yet know she wanted.

That was what he was thinking when he saw a bike come up alongside him on the right. He glanced over for no longer than a blink. When a second bike, came up on his left, he glanced that way.

Charming said, “Crave, can I give you a ride?” Crave didn’t reply. “Good luck,” he said to Snow as he sped forward toward Fosterland. Within a minute his disappearing form was blurring in waves of heat, leaving Snow alone with Crave.

“Crave,” Snow said in a matter-of-fact way.

“Snow,” he replied.

“After nearly three years that’s all you’ve got to say to me?”

“Bad time. I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

“My business. Go home.”

“Not till you tell me what you’re doin’ out here.” He didn’t answer. “Your little brother says you’re trying to prove something to your Promise. That what she wants?” No reply. “I’m thinkin’ that’s not what she wants, Crave. I’m thinkin’ what she wants is for you to be strong and healthy. Most importantly, alive.”

She had no way of knowing whether or not he was hearing her and processing what she had to say, because he was ignoring her.

“You a clam now? That’s almost as annoying as the sand that’s getting between me and my sweaty lingerie.”

She opened her mouth to try a new tack, but saw that Raven and Leo were riding up on the other side.

Crave glanced to his left.

“Crave,” said Leo.

“Leo. Raven,” he replied.

“Whatcha doin’?” Leo asked.

“I already tried that, Lee,” Snow said. “He says it’s none of our business.”

Leo looked at Crave. “He did, huh?”

“Yeah,” she continued, “told me to go home.”

“You tell Snow to go home, Crave? After three years that’s all you got to say? Go home?”

Crave glanced at Leo. “You, too, Lee. Go home.”

“I see time away hasn’t made you any easier to get along with.”

Crave ignored him.

“I heard from baby brother that Crave is being an ass,” Snow said.

“He said that?” Raven asked.

“No. He said Crave is trying to prove something to his Promise by killing himself. It’s me that thinks that adds up to being an ass.”